by Oxpictus

Created on: October 30, 2008   Last Updated: December 30, 2010

Fun fur. FUN FUR? Maybe some of you have not heard that phrase, but anyone following women's fashions can tell you that designers frequently use fur for everything from hats to footwear. Designers like Prada, Dolce & Gabanna, Odette Leblanc Collection, Petit Nordand, Pajar. Some of this "fun fur" are skins from baby harp seals.

Canadian fishermen, in their off-season, armed with rifles and a device called a "hakapik"- go onto the ice where female seals are with their babies that are from 12 days old to three months old. Hakapiks are club-like weapons with a large spike near the club.

These fishermen club the baby seals, sometimes gouging the babies' heads with the hakapiks, and sometimes skin them while they are not only alive, but are still conscious! Can you imagine the pain these babies must feel? Some of those that are shot are only wounded, and sink into the ocean to die.

What was once a beautiful baby animal by its mother's side is now a piece of raw meat with haunting, lifeless eyes. The frozen blood on the ice of the Gulf of St. Lawrence gives mute testimony to the carnage that has just taken place.

To some of these men, this is great sport. Clubbing a baby animal and skinning it alive. Great sport. This is barbaric beyond belief.

Almost 400,000 baby seals are killed by these fishermen every year. This is allowed and even encouraged by the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans, counting the 400,000 slaughters as part of the "Total Allowable Catch",despite a 1984 import ban on baby seal pelts by English Parliament. The Humane Society of the United States decries this grisly hunt, and encourages people to boycott seafood from Canada. Canada ignores the outrage of the many people who want this hunt of baby seals stopped.

Those who approve this slaughter argue that to ban the hunt will place undue hardship on the income of the fishermen. The fact is, Canadian fishermen, during the majority of the year are involved in standard fishing operations, and hunting baby seals only accounts for 5% of their annual income.

Despite denials from the Canadian government, environmentalists and scientists believe the hunt is a threat to the survival of the species. Perhaps, when the Canadian fishing industry completely tanks, will the Canadian government put a stop to this massacre.

I am sure the women's fashion industry can survive quite nicely without "fun fur". the skins of these baby harp seals.

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